When a lot is at object cap, and you remove nonrepeated item(s) you eventually drop below object cap. Then you can place an item not already in home.

If you are building on a lot that has just reached cap, if you want to do more, it becomes a matter of trading off. For example, replacing a unique sofa or bed for one that's already used in the home will for the cap. Then you can add one more item.

It's more problematic if EA suddenly drops the limit of items allowed. You really don't know how many unique items you would have to eliminate to get below cap. If it's a lot, and you just wanted to do a small change, you might want to just stay with what you have, as once you removed things, you wouldn't be able to put them back.

Oh! I get it now . I thought unique items are some of those newer furnitures or some other rare furnitures
I knew about the object cap and all but didn't connect the dots about the "unique items" term. I feel so stupid

Right now I'm changing all my indoor plants to a single type.That will do for now

I just checked and 2 houses that were under cap are now over cap. I hadn't changed anything. I wonder if they're trying to deal with the build mode lag we're seeing, which I think is due to the (in my opinion) stupid and useless "recommended" tab.

I agree the lag is because of the recommended tab (which I also agree is stupid and useless).

I'll check my one house again and see what happens when I remove a unique item.

I just removed three unique items from the house that I had built on the Dream Weddings update and was able to place them all back before hitting the object cap again.

Considering the object cap, and some of us recently reaching it without redecorating and some of us not experiencing any change, do we all play on the same version? I am still on version 5.33.3 while there is already version 5.33.5 to be downloaded from Goggle Play Store. I don't know what type of hotfix the new version contains, could it have changed the cap?